Teachers' Perspectives

(Please add a Pro or Con: edit the text by clicking the Edit tab in the top right corner, making changes on the page, and then clicking the Save button in the tool bar.)

Pros

  • lets teachers know how their students are doing in comparison with other classrooms
  • might offer information that gets a child the support he or she needs
  • helps teachers see an area or skill they may need to focus on
  • In BC, it gives teachers 4-5 hours of "prep" time while their students complete the tests. *I'm really stretching here!!!*
  • It holds teachers accountable (at the testing grade levels anyway)
DEEEEEEZ Nuts
  • cannot be used in report cards
  • job frustration, conflicts with personal ideologies about how students learn and philosophy of education
  • uses valuable time explaining the test and options re: taking the test to parents
  • It does not account for the many extraneous variables that affect test scores
  • difficult to explain to a parent when FSA results conflict with regular assessment results in the classroom
  • results of tests are used to evaluate teacher performance